Persimmon Flowers

[ameno]

My first persimmon flower opened today.
I also have 15 more buds coming.

I only bought the tree last August, so I won't let it have too many fruit, but I'm sure a couple will be fine - the tree looks healthy, and it did come potted, not bare-root, so it doesn't have root damage to repair.

https://i.imgur.com/Bz2erNq.jpg

[Plot70]

Just let it flower and fruit.
If it picks up any strong nutrients it may drop its fruit and more fruiting wood will appear for next year.
I had it with a Japanese quince. After adding a shovel full of stable manure it dropped all its fruit after flowering and created a completely new lead shoot 6 feet tall. They do there fruit on 2 year old wood so it will be next year before I find out how good the stuff those riding horses produce goes down with my Japonica.

[ameno]

Yeah, I have heard that over-fertilisation (especially nitrogen) of persimmons can lead to fruit drop.
I also read that higher potassium levels in the leaves improves fruit retention, and well-timed applications of foliar feed in general help with fruit retention, so since I already have some potassium nitrate (bought for my citrus plants), I plan on giving it a foliar feed once the fruit are about marble sized.

[burnie]

I'm not even sure what a Persimmon is, never mind how to grow it...…...off to search 'tinternet………......

[burnie]

So is yours astringent or non astringent is the first question lol.

[ameno]

Non-astringent.
The variety is Early Fuyu, which is the a sport of Fuyu, and is exactly the same except the fruits ripen 3-4 weeks earlier.

[burnie]

I see they are grown in California, even with the recent heatwave, not sure they would survive up here in North East Scotland.

[ameno]

They're fairly winter-hardy, although probably would struggle in NE Scotland.
They should be fine anywhere in central or southern England or Wales, though. They grow them widely in Japan, and the Yamanashi prefecture in particular is famous for them. That area is all up in the mountains, and winters there are definitely colder than anything you'd get in the south of England, and maybe about comparable to the midlands.

From what I've read, the main barrier to growing them in the UK (apart from availability of trees to buy) is that our summers often aren't warm or long enough to ripen the fruits properly. That's why I specifically chose the earliest ripening variety I could.

[ameno]

My persimmon would appear to have set 14 fruits. The largest are now about 1 inch across.
I shall need to thin them, I think. 14 is probably too many for such a small tree, and even if it could cope, the fruit would probably end up very small.